Crime & Justice

‘Rust’ gunsmith found guilty of involuntary manslaughter

Los Angeles, United States, Mar 6 (EFE).- A court of the First Judicial District of Santa Fe on Wednesday found a gunsmith guilty of involuntary manslaughter over an incident during the filming of Hollywood motion picture “Rust,” which killed the project’s photography director in 2021.

The New Mexico court in the United States said Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was also responsible for the security protocol and was acquitted of a charge of tampering with evidence, faces up to 18 months in prison for the death of Halyna Hutchins.

She received a preventive detention order after the verdict reached by the jury following two weeks of testimony.

Gutierrez-Reed – the first person to be tried in this case – was considered the main culprit of Hutchins’ death on Oct. 21, 2021 in a shooting in which actor Alec Baldwin, whose judicial process will begin on Jul. 9.

The gunsmith loaded the prop gun Baldwin used during the filming, during which Hutchins was killed. Director Joel Souza was also injured in the incident.

The jury mostly agreed Wednesday that Gutierrez-Reed acted negligently by improperly verifying that the 0.45-caliber revolver ammunition used in the filming was fake, so the death of the director of photography was a “foreseeable consequence.”

For her part, special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said in her final argument that the gunsmith’s actions were a “staggering breach” of the security protocol when recording scenes with weapons established in the film industry.

Gutierrez-Reed’s legal defense said throughout the process that the reduction in security expenses to make this film, for which Baldwin was also a producer, applied excessive workload on her and made her unable to focus on tasks purely related to weapons and ammunition.

The gunsmith was also accused in the months prior to this trial of consuming cocaine during the filming and of having manipulated evidence trying to hide the drugs through a member of her team on the day of the police investigations in the set.

However, these accusations could not be proven and the additional charge against her was dismissed Wednesday.

Witnesses for the trial included Souza, first assistant director Dave Halls – who avoided jail time by accepting a plea deal – producer Gabrielle Pickle; as well as veteran gunsmith Thell Reed (Gutierrez-Reed’s stepfather) and representatives of the company that supplied the cartridges for filming.

Last year, much of the original cast and crew of “Rust” reunited in Montana to finish filming in what the production described as a tribute to Hutchins with her husband as executive producer. EFE

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